Brian Hayes (Dublin South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senator for raising this matter. This is essentially a fish health issue and I understand the competent authority for dealing with it is the Marine Institute. Of key note in this case is that in respect of areas deemed to be free of the disease, there should be no importation of stock from infected areas. These areas were known as surveillance areas and included Ballinakill. In 2011 a positive test result for the virus necessitated the removal of Ballinakill Bay from the surveillance programme. Losses related to the virus in oysters were first observed in Ireland in 2008. The disease spread in the next couple of years and was strongly associated with imports of seeds from France.

Following representations made to the European Commission by the Marine Institute and the relevant Department in the United Kingdom, it was agreed by the Commission that this was a serious emerging disease and that trade restrictions should be put in place to protect those areas still free of the virus, while allowing trade to continue between infected areas. EU legislation was brought forward to that effect in 2010 and as a result, a surveillance programme was established in certain parts of Ireland, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. The kernel of the surveillance programme was that each competent authority identified epidemiological units, or bays in the case of Ireland, where virus related mortality had not been observed to date and which the member state wished to protect from trade with other infected areas, either within their own member state or further afield, most particularly France. Once these areas were identified as part of the surveillance programme, they could only trade with areas that were also in a surveillance programme.

One of the requirements of being in the surveillance programme was that a testing regime would be put in place to ensure these bays were, in fact, free of the virus. A significant amount of State resources have been put into the operation of the Irish surveillance programme since it started in 2010. Since the basis of the surveillance programme was to underpin safe trade, an obvious prerequisite was that an epidemiological unit, or bay in this case, had to be removed from the programme should a positive result be detected. Such a result was obtained in Ballinakill Bay in 2011.

The Irish surveillance programme started with 19 surveillance areas. In the period since 2010 testing revealed that five of these areas were infected and had to be removed from the programme. The five bays are Gweedore, Drumcliffe, Ballinakill, Oysterhaven and the Shannon Estuary. As new positive findings were made, new decisions were issued by the European Commission, which meant that newly infected areas were removed from the national programme and the legislation was modified to reflect these findings. Newly infected areas were also detected in Northern Ireland and Great Britain since the programme began in 2010.

Clinical disease is not required for an epidemiological unit to be removed from the programme. The positive finding in Ballinakill Bay necessitated its removal from the surveillance programme in 2011. It is important to note that the current legislation provides for no option other than to remove the bay from the surveillance programme following the detection of one positive oyster in the bay. Once a bay is removed from the surveillance programme, the relevant competent authority no longer has any legal basis for restricting trade into that bay. That is the basis of the agreed EU programme and applies equally in all member states which participate in the programme. In the case of Ballinakill Bay, if the Marine Institute had continued to restrict trade following the removal of the bay from the programme, a legitimate challenge could have been taken by other operators in the bay who were at that stage extremely keen to bring in stock from France. This was not allowed while the bay was in the surveillance programme.

The very complex situation in Ballinakill Bay was recognised by the Marine Institute. Instead of simply removing the bay from the surveillance programme and immediately allowing importation of stocks from France, the institute invested significant efforts into encouraging growers to voluntarily restrict trade with France for that season while testing continued. The objective was for the institute to gather specific data that would be used to inform a voluntary path forward for all stakeholders. Samples taken by the institute last year were negative for the disease and no samples have been taken in 2013. Specifically, the institute was faced with a situation where certain growers wanted to bring in stock from France and others wanted to go back into a surveillance programme which was not legally permissible. Instead, the institute tried to encourage stakeholders to consider the results obtained and reach an agreement on a code of practice for the bay that the institute would support with testing and advice. This has not been acted on by the stakeholders to date.

The action taken by the Marine Institute in Ballinakill Bay has been agreed to by the European Commission. The institute has made considerable efforts to encourage the stakeholders to agree to a code of practice. Agreement to a code of practice could, potentially, after a number of years provide data on which the virus free status of Ballinakill Bay could be reinstated. The institute has offered scientific advice and laboratory testing to support the approach, but it has had no communications with the growers in Ballinakill Bay on its offer to facilitate the development of a code of practice. However, the offer remains intact.

As the Senator rightly said, Ireland's reputation as a producer of top quality seafood is predicated on the implementation of a sound regulatory system that has the confidence of the public in general and also the European Commission. I am satisfied that in the circumstances the correct approach is being adopted in this case. I urge the growers in Ballinakill Bay to contact the Marine Institute with a view to progressing the matter.